


hero wakes at dawn

by andthentheybow



Series: of false gods and fake kings and everything in between [4]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Minecraft IRL, Non-Linear Narrative, Swearing, Tommy-centric, TommyInnit Angst (Video Blogging RPF), ft dadza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-18
Updated: 2020-11-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:54:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27620993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthentheybow/pseuds/andthentheybow
Summary: they tell him he is the hero, so that is the role he will play.if he could, he’d be running around causing trouble with his best friend, but the universe has always had other ideas.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Dave | Technoblade & TommyInnit, Dave | Technoblade & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, No Romantic Relationship(s), Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: of false gods and fake kings and everything in between [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2001208
Comments: 44
Kudos: 293





	hero wakes at dawn

**Author's Note:**

> don't be creepy about content creators, these are my interpretations of their personas, if they're uncomfortable this will be deleted, etc etc
> 
> i was going to post this on sunday and then i decided to wait until after the 16th and boy am i glad i did (yes this does contain spoilers)

he doesn’t know how it got to this point.

he is staring down his brother, who just shot his best friend. said best friend is telling him to stop, it’s fine, and he’s about to listen when his other brother says something and he just-  
snaps.

and the next thing he knows he’s on the ground and his brother is standing over him and his two best friends are crying out and this just kinda sucks, really, it’s not a very pog moment. he doesn’t know how it got to this point and he knows exactly how it got to this point, and his brother is saying that the only universal language is violence and he is so, so tired.

tubbo and niki pull him out of the pit and wilbur and techno are both talking about destroying manberg and he really, really thought he could count on his brothers here, but one of them is going crazy and the other has always kind of been that way, so he guesses he should’ve seen this coming.

that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.

(***)

they tell him he is the hero, so that is the role he will play.

if he could, he’d be running around causing trouble with his best friend, but the universe has always had other ideas. all he wants is to wake up in l’manberg and for things to be the way they used to be. but even before schlatt, he and tubbo rarely slept unless they were together, plagued by nightmares and ptsd and trauma from the war. and during the war wasn’t exactly great, so maybe he’d like to go back to before the war, when people were just kind of getting along, and things were good, but not great.

ideally, he and wilbur are not exiled and wilbur is in charge of the nation. or maybe niki, because wilbur’s kind of unstable and she actually knows what she’s doing. not important. someone responsible is in charge of the nation and he is able to have fun with his best friend and listen to his discs and walk through public spaces (or private spaces or literally any spaces) without constantly looking over his shoulder. techno is there and maybe phil and they are happy.

ideally.

the universe’s plan is that he is going to be exiled from his own nation and torn away from his best friend and watch his older brother go crazy before his eyes while his other brother does nothing to stop it. his brother is going to shoot his best friend and then he is going to challenge his brother and lose, horribly, and the guy that he kind of looks up to but would never tell anyone that is going to supposedly be on his side and then betray him just as quickly.

and he is going to be sixteen years old and leading a rebellion, because ender knows his brother isn’t stable enough to do it. they are going to go to war and one of them is a traitor.

he is going to be sixteen years old and taking part in a revolution, and he and his also sixteen-year-old best friend are going to die again and again and again, and he is going to lose the possessions that matter the most to him, he is going to willingly give them up to end the war and win independ(a)nce for the country he believes in.

he is going to be sixteen years old and he is going to be living in constant fear because as much as he wants to, he doesn’t know how this is going to end. which is fine, he guesses, but he really doesn’t like living in constant fear and he’d really like to be able to have a constant bed set in an actual house that he can sleep in and feel safe.

the universe has other plans. the universe always has other plans.

so he goes to sleep in a hastily-built bed in a ravine and he clutches his sword as he sleeps, and the hero of the story wakes at dawn and does it all over again.

(***)

it seems like the days are getting longer, even though he knows it’s getting closer to winter and the exact opposite is happening. time stretches out when there’s nothing to do other than sit and plan and gather supplies and listen to your brother go crazy.

wilbur gives his little speech about being the villains and ender, he wishes that he didn’t grow up in a family of dramatic theatre kids, because the monologue is actually pretty good. it’s targeted at him, which isn’t very pog, but other than that he’d give it a solid eight out of ten.

and wilbur is doing a good job of targeting him directly, telling him that he’s never going to be president, and that’s just the truth; but the real truth is that he never wanted to be president. he was wilbur’s vice president because wilbur asked. he joined wilbur’s revolution to stand at his brother’s side. the thought may have crossed his mind, sure, and he might shout otherwise because that’s just who he is as a person, but he has never once actually wanted to be the president.

being the president is a lot of responsibility, and he’s only sixteen. he doesn’t want to spend his days doing paperwork and talking about the economy and leading a country when he could be out building houses and practicing parkour and eating and playing and living. besides, politics are stupid and boring and he just wants to cause some chaos.

he hasn’t seen techno in a couple of days. after the first twelve hours he checked the potato farm, because it was literally like a week ago that techno farmed for fourteen hours straight through the night, but techno wasn’t there. and he wasn’t anywhere else in pogtopia, and he started getting that feeling of anxiety creeping up on him.

techno’s back not twenty minutes after he really, genuinely starts worrying, and he’s got three full stacks of diamonds with him and doesn’t act like anything is wrong. sometimes he really fucking hates his brothers.

(***)

he is ten years old and he wakes up in an unfamiliar bed. he’s pretty sure he passed out last night in a field of some kind, because he was so hungry and farms have food. now he is in a stranger’s bed, in a stranger’s house, and there is a stranger sitting next to him and watching him. the stranger is barely an adult, curly brown hair hidden under a beanie, and he’s staring at a guitar like he’s debating playing it or not.

“hello,” the stranger says cautiously, and because he has nothing else to do, he attacks.

and then there are two more strangers, one of them with a stupid green-striped bucket hat and a huge pair of wings and the other with pig’s teeth and a long pink braid, and the stranger holding him like a cat calls him a gremlin. he insists that he isn’t a gremlin and when he promises not to run, the stranger holding him puts him down.

he sits cross-legged on the ground and crosses his arms and he looks at the only adult, the man with wings and the stupid hat, and says very firmly, “i am staying here now.” his brothers say later that there was a lot more yelling involved, but he stands by that he was calm and rational about it. the man with wings is philza and the boy with the braid is technoblade and the stranger that picked him up is wilbur soot, and they are his family.

phil asks him his name and he says “it’s tommy, innit?” but he says it in a rush so it comes out as “tommyinnit” and that’s what he is. legally, he’s probably tommy watson, but it’s not like legalities matter when people can hop worlds as quickly as they can make new ones.

it takes a week for him to start calling phil ‘dadza’ and another week before he starts referring to wilbur and techno as his brothers. they don’t really adopt him so much as he adopts them, insisting that the room he woke up in is his now. phil sighs and starts building another addition to the house, and the next day he helps techno and wilbur farm potatoes for eight hours and he has never felt more like part of a family.

(***)

there is one group that rivals this feeling, and it is immediately after he wins l’manberg’s freedom. dream takes the discs from him like he knew this was going to happen all along, and he just ignores whatever that look might mean in favor of celebrating with his family.

tubbo is the first to reach him, and he wraps his (much shorter) best friend in his arms as wilbur slams into them a moment later, then fundy. and they laugh and (though he denies it) they cry because they’ve won, they’ve won, they’ve won. he is the hero, and he has saved the day, because that’s what heroes do. that’s what role he plays.

(***)

he doesn’t know if he wants to play it anymore. not if it means it’s so quiet. 

wilbur used to sing. he used to strum his guitar and let his voice carry throughout the halls of the white house, the halls of philza’s home, the streets of l’manberg. now it’s just quiet. wilbur is supposed to be the hero of the story, not him, because he’s just a kid. he’s wilbur’s right hand man. he should be shoving his brother as he ruffles his hair, not pulling his brother back from the brink of insanity and convincing him to not blow up everything they’ve fought for.

but if he has to do that, he will. if the universe wants him to play the role of hero, he will. and he’ll do his damn best at it, he will! he may be just a kid, but he can be the hero. he can!

that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have to drag himself out of bed in the morning sometimes. techno is always up at odd hours of the night, working on the farm, and he honestly doesn’t know if wilbur sleeps much these days. they all have bags under their eyes, either way.

sometimes he wonders what his family has become. techno refuses to help him in talking wilbur down, but techno’s just here for the anarchy, isn’t he? he doesn’t give a shit about l’manberg, he wasn’t here to fight for it. techno has a crown for a reason, he rules a different land, he doesn’t give a shit about this one.

so he’ll talk wilbur down alone, and quackity will (surprisingly) help him convince wilbur not to push the button, and he’ll wait with bated breath as the notes of wilbur’s song drift up from the tunnel and he’ll wait with bated breath for everything to explode, but it doesn’t come.

at least, not yet.

(***)

he’s constantly, constantly waiting for it to all blow up in his face.

he joins l’manberg because wilbur starts it. yeah, after leaving phil he kind of just trailed his older brother, because that’s what they told him to do, isn’t it? he’s sixteen, the only reason phil’s letting him leave their home world is because he promised to stick with wilbur. he meets tubbo and dream and suddenly they’re going to dream’s world, because dream invited him and you don’t say no to an invitation from a guy like dream, who radiates power even when he’s in a world that isn’t his own. he is invited and he goes where wilbur goes so wilbur comes too, and he drags tubbo after him because ender damn if he’s going to ever let tubbo out of his sight again-  
(he does, and those are the worst weeks of his life, but he tries not to think about it)  
-and suddenly they’re in dream’s world.

he doesn’t know if wilbur is incredibly stupid or incredibly brave to start a revolution against dream, but he joins either way. tubbo and eret side with them, and then wilbur’s got a son and he doesn’t even want to know how that works, so he kind of ignores fundy’s origins like everyone else does. he figures they’ll just die, again and again and again, fighting against guys like dream and georgenotfound and sapnap, and he’s pleasantly surprised when they actually manage to win a few battles.

of course, everything gets blown to hell, several times. but he makes battle plans with wilbur using knowledge he has from phil, and he writes to his father every week and techno at least once a month. he keeps his loud persona going, brash and abrasive and taunting the enemy, and at night he and tubbo curl up in the same bed because neither of them can sleep through the night without waking up from the nightmares.

ironic, that they’re fighting a guy named dream and the only thing they’re getting out of this is nightmares.

(***)

wilbur during the revolution is a person that he’s never seen before. he takes on the leadership role with pride, commanding but never too harsh, ruffling fundy’s hair after meetings and shaking eret’s hand and gathering tubbo in close after another painful respawn.

but he’s also more distant than he’s ever been, thinking about plans for freedom and independ(a)nce, and it gets to the point where the only person wilbur really has time for is him. he can see the pain in fundy’s eyes, sometimes, and he feels horrible about it, but he’s only human. he thrives on the attention he gets from his older brother, his general, and sometimes he forgets that the others need that same care.

but then wilbur calls him mr. vice president and that’s all forgotten because he’s the hero of this story, isn’t he? so he wakes up every day and laughs with his friends and fights his ender-damn hardest for what he believes in.

(***)

what he believes in changes with the tides. he believes in l’manberg, he believes in his discs, he believes in henry, he believes in his brothers. every one of those things gets ripped away from him at one point or another. the only constant that he has to believe in is tubbo. tubbo, who is a permanent fixture at his side and has been for a long time, even when they’re not together.

tubbo, who looks more and more tired every time he enters pogtopia, stripping off the suit jacket and tie and soon as he’s out of the tunnel. he tries his best to smile as he gives his reports and helps techno with the farm, and every time tubbo has to go back to manberg it feels like a little part of his soul is being ripped away.

he wants nothing more than to run away with his discs and his tubbo and be done with all these stupid wars. but he’s the hero of the story and his brothers are depending on him, so he won’t, he’ll stay for now, and he’ll pray to the god of the world that they can all hold on for just a little longer.

(he doesn’t know it, but the god hears him. the god is listening. the god will make sure things are the way they’re supposed to be.)

(***)

it is less than a day after they’re exiled, and he hears a whisper on the winds. it’s the voice of his brother, of technoblade, a voice he hasn’t heard in so long that he thinks he’s imagining it at first. but then he hears it again, techno whispering, “i’m at spawn, where are you?”

technoblade, here. in dream’s world.

(the god has heard his prayers and the god has answered, not that he knows it, not that he’ll ever know it.)

so he sneaks close to l’manberg- manberg- territory and he grabs his brother and they run, they book it for the ravine. it’s only when they’re at the entrance does he allow himself to launch himself into technoblade’s arms, laughing. he’s not crying, thank you very much, he’s a big man, he’s not going to cry after being reunited with his brother. but techno catches him and laughs, too. his hair is longer, the bright pink braid down to his waist, and he has a new crown settled carefully on his head.

“tommy, what-” wilbur starts, emerging from the ravine at the noise, and he freezes at the sight of their other brother.

“heard you were starting a rebellion,” techno says with a grin, and wilbur laughs with joy as he launches himself at techno. a minute later they pull him in and the three brothers stand there for a moment, just a moment, before they get to work.

(***)

there is blood dripping from his nose and a cut on his forehead and every bone in his body aches. he is staring down technoblade and his sword is covered in blood and techno’s got his crossbow in one hand and an axe in the other.

“you’re betraying us?” he snarls. “really?”

“i’m a violent anarchist, tommy,” techno replies. “and you’re creating a government in front of me.” and he gives a long and very poetic speech that tommy has to admit is pretty good, at least a solid eight out of ten, ender damn his family full of theatre kids.

he does not like his brother’s logic. because yeah, it’s logical, but ender, techno, at least let them have a day or something. but no, the blood god waits for no one.

“did you want to be the hero, tommy?” his older brother says, and he raises the crossbow. “then die like one.”

it was never meant to be.

(***)

there is blood dripping from his nose and a bruise forming on his forehead and more bruises all over his body, really, and his whole body aches. and techno kneels down and presses their foreheads together and he has to stop himself from flinching back.

“the only universal language is violence, tommy,” techno says, and wilbur is crowing triumphantly in the background as tubbo cries out for them to stop. “remember that.”

and then he’s gone, wilbur slinging an arm around his shoulders, and niki is diving into the pit to help him out. tubbo hugs him a moment later, mumbling something about healing potions, and he has to look away because of the burn scars running up and down the side of tubbo’s face, the reason he was in the pit in the first place.

the festival is the worst day of his life, a culmination of every bad thing that’s been building up so far. wilbur keeps one arm on his shoulder, his grip iron-tight to prevent him from fucking bolting down to a boxed-in tubbo. techno is on the stage and he’s got the crossbow loaded with a fucking firework, not even an arrow or a sword to get the job done quickly and painlessly.

“it’ll be fine,” wilbur promises. “techno is on our side.” the grip on his shoulder says differently. the grip on his shoulder speaks volumes. wilbur does not care if tubbo dies. wilbur does not care if techno betrays them. wilbur does not care if manberg blows up. wilbur does not care.

he does care. he cares a hell of a lot, and listening to wilbur whisper to tubbo that it’ll be okay, that techno won’t hurt him- well, that hits him right in the heart, a pain that stays there and only grows when the fireworks go off.

he pearls to tubbo the second wilbur lets go of his shoulder. techno has already moved on to killing everyone else, shooting at their feet and blowing them sky-high. tubbo is already gone, blood staining the inside of the trap, which means he’s in the process of respawning. he thanks ender that tubbo’s spawn point is still set in pogtopia and he turns on techno.

“get outta here!” techno yells at him, eyes glowing red. wilbur has already disappeared from the rooftop, and he scoffs at techno before pearling out of there.

wilbur is waiting in pogtopia when he returns, niki standing across from him. he feels a spike of pleasure at seeing niki, even if she’s glaring at wilbur like her life depends on it. her clothes are torn and her hair’s a mess, and there’s blood running down the side of her face. she runs to him and wraps him in a hug the second he enters the ravine, and it takes all his effort to not just collapse in her arms. he’s on a mission, going for tubbo, running to his room. niki catches his arm.

“he hasn’t respawned yet, tommy,” she says gently, and that’s a whole trip, because why wouldn’t he have respawned by now? he died ages ago- unless something went wrong-

and he’s filled with the overwhelming fear that maybe tubbo didn’t want to respawn because of him, because he’s loud and obnoxious and constantly pushing tubbo to the side, maybe tubbo finally got sick of it and he honestly couldn’t blame the other boy, if he were in his best friend’s shoes maybe he’d be gone, too, take off to some other world, ender, why couldn’t he have just been a better friend-

and then there’s a cry of pain that interrupts his spiral, and he takes off, niki hot on his heels. they burst into his room to see tubbo standing up, ripping off the suit jacket and clawing at his skin. they both stop in the doorway as tubbo turns back, and he can’t hold himself back anymore, he runs at his best friend and hugs him tight as the tears spill out of tubbo’s eyes.

“wilbur said he wouldn’t hurt me,” tubbo chokes out, and he feels the claw of white-hot anger gripping at his heart.

and because the only ender-damned constant in his life is tubbo, because tubbo is the only thing he believes in no matter what, he fights his brother. tubbo and niki both plead for them to stop, but wilbur cries for them to go, and he listens to his brother. he hates himself for it, but he listens to his brother, and techno beats him to a pulp, tells him the only universal language is violence, and the only reason he doesn’t collapse into a ball and cry when niki and tubbo reach him in the pit is because he knows that they’re never going to hear the end of this from phil.

(***)

phil, who doesn’t show up until the end, because the only way this day could be any more chaotic is his father finally accepting dream’s invitation. techno is killing everyone and the world is exploding. the world is exploding, this is it, this is the end, this is the end, this is the end, and l’manberg is gone. everything they’ve fought for, gone in a pile of ash with the press of a button and hundreds of blocks of tnt.

and then they hear laughing. everyone is standing still, even techno, and they all turn to see the side of the mountain blown open, wilbur standing there.

“l’manberg, my unfinished symphony!” he’s screaming to the wind, and there’s phil standing next to him, there’s phil! phil, who’s obviously been trying to talk wilbur out of blowing everything up, who’s standing there in shock.

and they all watch as wilbur turns and hands phil his sword and begs for phil to kill him. his voice breaks as he says it and phil looks down at the sword in his hand and then he runs wilbur through with it.

and he doesn’t really have time to think about the effects that that trauma will have, watching his brother beg for their father to kill him and their father obliging. because techno unleashes his withers and phil leads an epic attack against them and then everything just kind of continues going to shit, just in general, and when he finally has a moment alone with his father it’s long after techno has disappeared into the night. wilbur has not reappeared.

and he allows his father to hold him, to rest in his father’s arms, the two of them watching tubbo and niki and eret curled around a fire. they’re all camping on ruined land, the members of pogtopia. dream said they were welcome in his city, but they chose to remain here. their city is gone, but their hearts lie on its land.

“will wilbur be back?” he asks phil.

“no,” phil says, and his voice is dark. “he’s taking some mandatory time away. clear his head. i think the countryside will be good for him.”

“we can visit him, right?” and ender, he feels like a child saying it, but his father is holding him and his father is wearing that stupid striped bucket hat only now there’s a splatter of blood on it, so maybe he’s allowed to feel like a child. he doesn’t always have to be the hero.

“yeah, tommy,” phil says. “we can visit him.”

“you’re gonna have a talk with techno, right?”

and phil laughs and ruffles his hair and says, “yeah, tommy, i’ll have a talk with techno.”

he knows when phil is lying to him. but he allows his father to hold him and he allows himself to be a child, because ender knows the sun will rise tomorrow and he’ll wake up and he’ll have to be the hero again.

(***)

the hero probably doesn’t burn down buildings for the fun of it. to be fair, it is for revenge, because sapnap killed henry. sapnap killed his fucking cow, his beloved cow, and sapnap’s gotta pay the price. he doesn’t mean to start a skirmish, but hey, if this is how today’s gonna go, then it’s how today’s gonna go.

niki is running and he’s going to protect niki at all costs, because she’s already gotten the short end of every fucking stick with this whole schlatt thing, and he knows that sapnap and bad and skeppy and ender knows who else are chasing after him, and niki’s not getting out of that one good. he might as well being the only one going down.

he’s cornered and he looks sapnap dead in the eyes and talks about the blade, and he hollers with joy as both technoblade and dream step out of the shadows, weapons drawn, prepared to protect him. the fight’s over in a matter of minutes, he doesn’t even need to raise his sword, and seeing dream stand in front of him protectively gives him a little bit of whiplash but he doesn’t say anything about it.

(***)

dream is standing in front of him and it’s not protectively, it’s with a bow in his grasp on the docks, wilbur off to the side. tubbo and fundy are behind him, george and sapnap are behind dream. punz and eret watch off to the side, and everyone is holding their breath.

wilbur cries fire, and they fire.

it’s not one of the most painful deaths he’s ever had, not by a long shot, but the arrow wound still stings when he wakes up and knows that they’ve lost.

he trades his discs soon after. it’s worth it for the look on wilbur’s face.

(***)

he never knows whose side dream is on. maybe dream likes it that way, the constant mystery. he and dream are friends, he likes to think, even despite the wars and everything. dream gives him stuff and leaves him six pages worth of writing and he laughs at some of the terminology, but it’s still insanely thoughtful.

he looks up to dream, a little bit. dream is powerful and knows it, cocky but not to a fault, quiet when he needs to be and loud the rest of the time. he would never, ever tell anyone, but he respects dream. he looks up to dream. dream in battle and dream as a strategist, dream as a brotherly figure and dream as a leader. he looks up to dream.

and then dream says that he’s not on his side, he’s never been on his side, and yeah, that sounds about right. he’s a bit upset, but he’s not at all surprised. dream also says that there’s a traitor amongst them and ender if he doesn’t want to think about that.

he’s the hero of the story, and dream is the villain, and that’s just how it went. the whole war, the whole revolution. dream turns into more of an antihero and he supposes that he does, too, because again, burning down a building out of revenge and then blaming a neutral force isn’t exactly hero behavior.

at one point, dream says that he sees himself in him. raw power, determination, fierce love of his friends. he doesn’t know how to feel about it. he’s not even sure if it really happened. it might have been an actual dream.

(it might have been the god of the world, seeing through months of struggle and pain that the kid might not be a god, but he’s certainly not human. any normal human would’ve given up by now. he just keeps going.)

he ignores it. dream lets his sister visit from their home world and she’s a force in of herself, and he doesn’t really know how to feel about either of the siblings. they’re both on the side of chaos, but a different kind of chaos than techno. maybe that’s why dream and techno are so evenly matched- they’re both agents of chaos, just on opposing ends of the spectrum.

sometimes he thinks he’s an agent of chaos, too. okay, not sometimes. most of the time. because he is, really, but can you blame him? he’s a teenage boy, what else is he supposed to be?

he doesn’t want to be hardened by the facts of war. he doesn’t want to grow up before he has to. he doesn’t want to be mature for his age, leading a country to battle at sixteen years old.

he doesn’t want to, but he will, because that’s what the universe has in store for him. that’s the way it’ll be.

(***)

the way it’ll be is this: eret, who he loves, who he trusts, will lead them down to the final control room. there will be chests, and they will be empty. he will push the button, the walls will open, and every single one of them will die. eret will betray them for the title of false king. it was never meant to be.

the way it’ll be is this: techno, who he loves, who he trusts despite everything, will lead them down to his secret base. there will be chests, and they will be full, stacked with netherite armor and weapons and everything they could ever need. he will start forming a government, techno will turn on them, and every single one of them will die. techno will betray them for the title of anarchist. blood for the blood god.

the similarities do not end there, he thinks. eret is the false king. techno is the false god. if techno were a real god, he wouldn’t be sitting on a bench with tubbo, dream standing behind them, staring out over the smoking ruins of manberg as one of his discs plays in the background. if techno were a real god, they would be dead and gone.

they are not dead and gone. they are all still here. he does not know if he will ever truly trust techno again, but he’s his brother, so that has to count for something. he does not know if he will ever truly trust eret again, but they’re already helping to rebuild manberg, so that has to count for something.

manberg. can he call it l’manberg again now?

he thinks he will. fuck manberg. fuck pogtopia. fuck wilbur and schlatt and dream and fuck techno the false god. eret is the false king and techno is the false god, wilbur is the false leader and schlatt is the false emperor, and he is the real hero. he is the real hero, ender damn it, he is the real hero and he has led his people to victory. their city has been destroyed but their spirits haven’t.

he is the real hero, and he will wake at dawn and help rebuild, and things will be okay.

(***)

things will be okay is the mantra that phil likes to repeat to them on nights that are particularly bad. the three boys each have their separate rooms, but sometimes they’re all awoken to the soft strumming of a guitar and they all gather on wilbur’s bed and let him sing and cry and then they all fall asleep there. sometimes they’re all awoken to the front door slamming open and shut and then in the morning they make techno’s favorite breakfast and spend all day basking in the sunlight. sometimes the bags under phil’s eyes are more pronounced, and the three boys will exchange looks and be on their best behavior. sometimes they’re all awoken by him screaming, and his older brothers and his father will surround him with love and warmth and he’ll fall asleep with his family.

and every time, phil is there, murmuring that things will be okay, things will be okay. this is not the end, this is not the end, this is not the end. things will be okay.

he wants to believe him. he so, so wants to believe him. it’s difficult, some days, but he hides his anxiety under nervous energy and loud jokes and comments about women and people laugh and he can hide. occasionally his family will draw it out of him, and they are the only ones that do, in the dead of night when he can pretend that nothing happened when he wakes up.

he opens up to tubbo and niki, later, but they’re practically family anyways. it’s always at night. sometimes tubbo drags him out to look at the stars and occasionally after a bad nightmare the white lights will look like glowing eyes behind a pair of sunglasses, and then tubbo will shift and their arms will brush slightly and it will smell like niki’s cookies, and he will think yes, this was meant to be. things will be okay.

(***)

three weeks after the festival, he grabs tubbo and doesn’t tell anyone where they’re going except dream, who’s there to let them out of the world, and he goes back to phil. he takes tubbo with him and he can see the surprise in his father’s eyes, but phil doesn’t say anything, not about the scars covering both boys or how they flinch at loud noises or how they never leave each other’s side.

they fall asleep tangled together on the couch, and he wakes up in the middle of the night and can see that tubbo’s grip on his sword isn’t loosened even in sleep. phil comes to lay a blanket over them and he makes eye contact with his father.

“the sixteenth, dad,” he says. “we’re ending it on the sixteenth.”

and he knows that philza does not fight his sons’ battles for them, but he hopes that the pleading in his eyes will change philza’s mind. even if he’s not there to fight, just to support them. to be a force they can converge on when it’s over, no matter what happens, wings and arms spread wide for hugs.

“i’ll think about it,” phil promises, and ruffles his hair, and lets him sleep.

the night after the festival, he and tubbo and niki don’t leave each other’s sides. they stand on a hill and watch the sunset and niki insists that they must get their lost city back, and he agrees with her. he still thinks he can talk wilbur out of it, at this point, he can get through to his brother. even if techno isn’t on his side, wilbur has always listened to him, hasn’t he? they’ve been through too much together.

two nights after the festival, with wilbur showing no signs of diverting from his path to insanity, tubbo and niki sneak off to eret’s castle. he knows where they’re going, they invited him with, but he doesn’t know if he can trust eret. not yet. it’s quackity’s first night, so he stays with quackity, showing him around, avoiding wilbur, joking together in a way they haven’t in a long time. in the morning tubbo and niki come back looking more well rested than they have since the election, and he tries not to be jealous, because eret is their sibling. wilbur is his.

he will save his brother. he will save his brother, or he will die trying. because that’s what heroes do. they save the day. he will wake at dawn and he will be tired and he will just. keep. going.

(***)

“do you think we’ll be okay?” tubbo asks, looking up at him with tired eyes. the city is destroyed but he can feel the beat of his heart, deep in his chest, keeping him alive. and as long as he is alive, as long as tubbo is alive, as long as niki and quackity and fundy and eret are alive, l’manberg is alive.

“yeah, big man,” he replies. “i think we will.” and he means it.

his brother tells him that the only universal language is violence, and that’s how he knows that his brother is wrong. sure, violence is a universal language, but so is love, and even if he tries to hide it, he loves so much more deeply than he could ever hate.

and sitting there with tubbo, listening to his disc and watching the sun set over their ruined city, is how he knows that techno is dead fucking wrong. because he loves. he loves his dad and his brothers and all the time they’re together and a family. he loves phil’s kind words and bright smiles. he loves wilbur’s beautiful songs, he loves techno’s fierce protectiveness. he loves niki and her bakery and her sisterly nature, fundy and quackity and all their jokes, ender, he even loves eret and their castle and their stupid redemption arc. he loves l’manberg and pogtopia and everyone in them. he loves tubbo. ender damn it, does he love tubbo, his best friend, his partner in crime. and he loves techno, but techno is wrong. because love is a universal language too, and that’s how they win. not with violence. with love.

alright, maybe a little bit of violence. a fair amount of violence. but the point is! the point is that techno is wrong, and he’s going to do everything he can to prove it. the point is that some day techno will come back and see that l’manberg has been rebuilt, and he will be able to step back and be the vice president and let tubbo take charge, and everything will be good. they will win with love, not violence.

the universe’s plans for him are this: he will be the hero, who wakes at dawn, who harnesses the universe’s languages in a way that makes him not quite human. but he will not care, because he is a child, and for now he has his best friends at his side and his father behind him, and he will speak the languages of the universe in a way that proves what he already knows. even if he doesn’t know how to get to that point, things will be okay. this may be the end, but it is only the end of the beginning.

the hero wakes at dawn. his best friend grins up at him. he plays his discs, and he starts the day again. just as the universe intended.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos/etc make my brain chemicals happy :)


End file.
